chap, xxii FAMOUS DIAMONDS 99
carats,
the water being perfect. The flat side, where there were two flaws at
the base, was as thin as a sheet of thick paper. When I had the stone
cut I had all this thin portion removed, together with a part of the
point above, where a small speck of flaw still remains.1
No.
6 represents another diamond which I bought in the year 1653 at the
Kollur mine. It is beautiful and pure, cut at the mine. It is a thick
stone, and weighs 36 mangelins, which are equal to 63 3/8 of our carats.2
Nos. 7 and 8. The two pieces represented are from a cleaved stone, which, when whole, weighed 75 5/8 mangelins, or 104 carats.3
Although of good water, there appeared so much impurity inside it,
that, as it was large and high-priced there was no one among the
Banians who dared to purchase it. At length a Dutchman named Bazu
ventured to do so, and, having had it cleaved, he found inside it about
8 carats weight of impurity like decomposed vegetable matter.4
The small piece was clean, save for a nearly imperceptible flaw ; but
as for the other, where the flaws traversed right through, it had to be
divided into seven or eight pieces. The Dutchman risked much in
cleaving this stone, and it was a great piece of good luck for him that
it did not break into a hundred fragments. Still, for all that, it did
not repay him ; this makes it sufficiently plain that where the Banians
refuse to bite there is nothing to be hoped for by the Franks.
1 Mr. Streeter (Great Diamonds, 140
ff.) heads a chapter with this, the 'Ahmadabad Diamond ', but, so far
as the stone is concerned, all that can be said is that nothing is
certainly known of its subsequent history. It may have been disposed of
in Persia.
J
The equivalent of 36 Kollur or Golkonda mangelins, in carats at If, is
49$ carats, and in Rammalakota mangelins at 1} (see p. 69) = 63 carats.
Nothing further is known of this stone.
* Strictly 103|J carats, in round numbers therefore 104, the mangelins being those of Golkonda at If carats in this case.
*
This case has been quoted in connexion with investigations into the
nature and origin of the diamond. Mr. Streeter devotes a chapter to
this diamond. (See Great Diamonds, ch. xxx, p. 218.) Bazu, on his return to Europe, sold a number of diamonds and pearls to Louis XIV.
